It's said you can't help whom you fall in love with. Sometimes you can't help what
you fall in love with, either. One-year-old Andres Hernandez is crazy
about…drumroll, please…a bottle of lotion. "I started handing it to him
as a distraction during diaper and clothing changes," says his mom,
Belinda, of Lowell, MA. "Now he goes berserk when he sees it. He smiles
at it, hugs it, and then starts 'talking' to it!"

Andres may have picked something unusual to lavish his lovin'
on, but he's hardly alone—toddlers have been known to glom on to
everything from spoons to Dad's cherished BlackBerry. To a small child,
what's important about a lovey isn't what it looks like, but how it
makes him feel. "The comfort is in what it represents," says Tovah
Klein, Ph.D., director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler
Development, in New York City. "It's similar to when we adults carry
good-luck charms—they provide security, and a connection to the larger
world." You don't want to give up your rabbit's foot, do you? Let your
child keep a grip on his tomato paste can—and make everyone happy.